Hardware Requirements

The computer must have network connectivity at account setup. Network connectivity is also required to synchronize mailboxes with servers.

Platforms Supported

This release supports the following 3 platforms:

Windows XP SP2 and above, including Windows Vista and Windows 7

Mac OS X (Intel) "Snow Leopard" 10.6.x

Linux (x86) 2.6.x and above

Software Installation

Installation Instructions for First Time Users

Download the installer for the operating system of your choice.

Pre-installation:

Make sure the location where you install the software has enough disk space. If you plan to sync with large mailboxes, it is important to allocate enough space for all your mailbox data (the data will be saved under your home data directory).

Note, you must have sufficient access rights to install to the specified installation folder.

On Mac OS do not run installer as the "root" user.

On Linux, if you choose default install location and/or want to perform multi-user installation, please run installer as root. See Zimbra Desktop 7.0 Beta 1 FAQ for more information.

Run the installation wizard and follow the step-by-step instructions.

Using the Software

Accounts Setup

When you first launch Zimbra Desktop, you will need to setup one or more accounts. Zimbra Desktop supports the following account types:

Zimbra Account – You must have an existing account from an employer or a service provider that runs Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS). ZCS 5.0 servers or above are required.

Other POP/IMAP Accounts – You MUST have complete settings information in order to setup POP/IMAP access. Your can obtain such information from your service provider.

You can also set up more than one of the same type of accounts. For example, if you have two Zimbra accounts or two Gmail accounts, they can coexist without problems.

NOTE: You MUST have Internet access when setting up accounts, as Zimbra Desktop will need to verify your settings with your service providers.

You can either setup all your accounts first, or setup one first and add others later. Once your accounts are setup, click “Launch Zimbra Desktop” and start using the software. At any time when you want to add, update or remove accounts, simply click the “Setup” link (next to help) to go back to Account Setup screen.

NOTE: With large mailboxes or slow network connections, initial sync could take many hours. During initial sync, you will be still able to read, compose, send and receive new email. However you may not find all your messages in search results until the end of initial sync. It is OK if your network connection is interrupted or your computer crashes during initial sync. Zimbra Desktop will continue from the last check point when it resumes.

Startup and Shutdown

On Windows, you will find the Zimbra Desktop program in the Start menu. On Mac OS, it's located under /Applications/Zimbra Desktop. On Linux, there will be a shortcut placed the desktop.

You can close the GUI client window any time. If you are in the middle of composing an email or have any unsaved changes, make sure to save them before closing the window.

Special Note about Gmail

Gmail IMAP server lists all Gmail labels as folders. This includes both system labels such as “All Mail” and “Starred”, as well as user created labels. Because a single email can have multiple labels, as a result the same email can exist in multiple folders. To avoid downloading duplicate data, we ignore system label folders such as “All Mail” and “Starred”.

Going Offline

When you are disconnected from network or a remote server becomes unavailable, you are in offline mode. You can be in offline mode with a particular mailbox if only that server is temporarily down. When in offline mode, any data that is already downloaded is accessible. New updates to your remote mailbox including new emails will not be received until you are reconnected with that server. You will be able to compose and send emails while offline, but the outgoing emails will remain in the Outbox folder and will not be delivered until after you reconnect to the server.

If the network connectivity is lost while data synchronization with a remote server is under way, the process will resume where it was interrupted when connectivity recovers. No data will be lost due to connectivity disruption.